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Connecticut Open notebook: Blake, Roddick heated rivals, very good friends

on August 21, 2014

FRIENDS AND ENEMIES: Teammates on a winning Davis Cup team in 2007, friendly rivals on the ATP Tour for years, James Blake and former world No. 1 Andy Roddick got to hang out for a few days here.

Then they were set to hit the court at the Connecticut Open, a tournament that Roddick knew means a lot to Fairfield-raised Blake, for Thursday night's men's legends exhibition match.

"We're still competitive," Blake said. "We can go out and play a game of checkers, and probably there's a chance the board'll get flipped over if I won."

Roddick shrugged and nodded. He's still got the fire, though the 32-time champion remains happy with his decision to retire in 2012.

"I missed it a lot," said Roddick, 31. "You have those moments of wishing you were there, but the process to get to those moments, I couldn't get through anymore."

He's still busy: He works for Fox Sports 1, he runs a foundation in Texas and he's an owner in World TeamTennis.

"And I do what my wife tells me to do. That takes up a lot of time," Roddick said.

"And play golf," Blake leaned in.

"I play a lot of golf, too," Roddick agreed.

Has his golf game improved?

"It'd be hard not to," Roddick said.

Blake, 34, said he won a trophy at a golf tournament this year.

"That went right on the counter in my kitchen. My wife made fun of me endlessly," Blake said.

Both said they don't dwell on the past very often, don't spend much time with their trophies.

"When my kids get older," Blake said, "I'll probably want to show them something (from my career), and they'll think, `Daddy's such a dork. What's he telling us this stuff for?'"

The jabs between the two were still going back and forth as they sat in a press conference. They played 12 times on tour, and Roddick won nine, including two out of three tournament finals.

"The fun thing about our rivalry was that it was a relatively friendly rivalry," Blake said. "We played, and we wanted to beat each other's brains in on the court, but we were perfectly content to go to dinner that night, too, no matter who won -- unfortunately, often that was him, but you know, that meant he picked up the check."

FAMILY CLASSIC: More than 1,500 competitors in 75 events played down to championship matches in nine divisions at the Connecticut Open Family Classic.